Does Yanks Move Help Or Damage An Elite Brand?

April 29, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

The story of the week will be the Yankees taking an about face to lower ticket prices, and Darren Rovell in his blog on Tuesday took a detailed look at some of the reasons. On another level, the rule of thumb many times is to hold the line and never lower or discount in season, as it hurts the long time brand value where people will now look to bargain for something elite that they could never get a lower price for before. Mercedes, Nordstrom’s etc. rarely lower prices, as you know with those high quality brands you pay the price for high quality service. Even in sports for all their oncourt issues, the Knicks front row and rows behind the bench at Madison Square Garden remain the priciest seats in sports. Now although some may argue this was just a slight PR spin and that the Yanks knew all along that they had minimums to hit and just adjusted prices closer to those minimums, that may not necessarily be true. The view of empty seats around home plate in what is an endless season can damage brand and become more the longer term story than the lowering of prices. Even Tuesday night, most stories still were spinning that the prices remain too high for the average family, and more discounting is needed. Then there is the issue of all those who paid full price and how refunding or additional tickets will have to be handled with them. For those elite seatholders, the higher price was never a real issue, so now angering them with “discounts” around them will also have to be handled. Now there is some value to public perception of reacting to the economy and fan demand to lower ticket prices, and the Yanks will get some due for that. The bigger question is will this “discounting” just make the Yanks another team and less of an elite brand? In this marketplace, especially in a new facility, getting people in to sample product and determine value is tantamount. The Yanks tried to hold the line and did the research to see what the public will bear, so hopefully the brand will hold, team performance will rise, and the lower ticket for the elite seats fills those voids. Short term damage slightly abated, and longterm if any to be determined.

Petty or Powerful? Sharapova Uses Her Site To Air Internal Politics

May 5, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

As always, Darren Rovell has the time to cruise into areas on the edge of the media and find issues worth addressing or uncovering…on Friday he took a look at women’s tennis phenom Maria Sharapova’s website and found that Sharapova had posted on her site a problem that she was having with the WTA Tour about having to do a photo shoot before her Tier I Rome event or else risk a substantial fine.  The yin and yang of getting athletes to fulfill requirements to promote the sport has gone on for years, and golf and tennis, with the athletes being essentially independent contractors to the governing bodies with a schedule that is a travelling circus, sometimes have the biggest issues.  The problem here is not that both sides obviously had an issue that was escallating.  The problem is how it got to this point in the first place.  Now if you are a fan of the sport, you don’t really care about an athlete’s internally scheduling issues…you want to see them perform and get their work done below the line just like everyone has to do…we all have duties at work that we don’t like to do but we find a way to get them done.  If you are a business partner you HATE to see these things aired publicly…it shows you that there is a lack of communication and lack of trust between the NGB (or the team and the league) and the athlete and her management.  If you are the NGB or the league or the team you are now disappointed at the athlete and her management team for making this public and probably annoyed at your management for letting it get to this point.  So who wins and who holds the hammer?  Actually no one wins, and in individual sports the elite athlete usually holds the hammer. 

Red Bulls Find Ways To Break Through The Clutter Of Baseball Opening Week…

April 1, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

PR Move of the Day:  One of the biggest challenges MLS has faced is having compelling and relevant soccer in the New York area.  The team…MetroStars or Red Bulls…has suffered from an identity crisis, both from following the legendary Cosmos and from issues with stadium, timing and solid strategic marketing against all the competition for dollar and space in the area.  Now with the MLS season opening around baseball’s openers, it would seem the challenges are even more daunting.  However the Red Bulls have been able to refocus and look off the sports page to get some solid placement with a series of great pitches and grassroots moves, leading to a solid piece in today’s New York Times  by Stuart Elliott and another solid positioning piece on Forbes.com by Tom Van Riper.  The team will also host a series of countdown events around the city during the week, with several other national and local pieces running to support the opener, build brand awareness for the future, and integrate the Red Bull brand into the New York sports culture.  Well planned and well executed with a solid chance for long term success, mirroring MLS’ continued growth around the country.

A Year’s Worth of “Minor” Stories Make For A Major Week…

February 8, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

We wanted to take a moment to wrap up a week that started with everything “Giants” to notice some great, smaller (but still midmajor in some cases) stories that grabbed some solid national coverage this week.  On the college hoops front, both Drake University and Baylor University have seemed to really capture the national spotlight, not just for their oncourt success but becuase of their very genuine and charismatic coaches who have helped lead them back from the scrap heap.  The Drake rise was captured very well by John Feinstein in last Sunday’s Washington Post, who spent some solid time with head coach Keno Davis.  The Baylor comeback, led by head coach Scott Drew, has all the makings of a great movie regardless of where they finish the season, and was told from a different perspective, through the eyes of the alumni, in the Kansas City Star.   Yet another program getting some great exposure this week, maybe for the first time for most fans, is the Trinity College squash team, whose story is told this week in the pages of Sports Illustrated by Michael Bamberger.  The team, which most people (I among them) has not lost in over ten years, and its eclectic makeup and dedicated coach is certainly worthy of exposure both on and off the sports page.  The piece is the latest in a series of noteworthy exposure pieces in SI recently.  Also noteworthy on the college scene was the USA Today feature on the Miami University (OH) hockey team and their quest for an NCAA title.  Coach Enrico Blasi’s efforts to bring the team back from the brink of extension to it’s lofty place also deserved the exposure it received this week, and is worth a read if missed.   In a week where the teamwork of the Giants has been noted time and again, these coaches cartainly also deserved their moment in the spotlight, as did the diligent SID’s who had to find the writers and make the stories work for the schools.  No bigger recruiting tool for these size programs (Baylor included in that group) than that type of exposure.